“I love you. I’m going to keep loving you. But I’m also going to keep living. Because that’s what you taught me to do.”
When I turned around, Jack was standing twenty feet back, giving me space but close enough. Meatball was sitting beside him, her tail sweeping the grass, and when she saw me looking, she bounded forward with that graceless enthusiasm that made everything better.
I caught her before she could knock me over—barely—and she licked my face with single-minded determination while I laughed and cried and held onto her like an anchor.
Jack appeared beside me, his hand warm on my back.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah.” I wiped my face on Meatball’s fur, which she tolerated with heroic patience. “I’m ready to go home.”
“Home,” he repeated, and something in his voice made me look up.
He was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read—soft but intense, like he was memorizing this moment.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing. Just you.” He cupped my face, thumbs tracing the tear tracks on my cheeks. “You called it home.”
“Well.” My throat went tight. “That’s what it is, isn’t it.”
“Yeah.” He kissed me—gentle, careful, like I was something precious. “Yeah, it is.”
We walked back to the car together, Meatball trotting ahead, and I didn’t look back at the grave. Didn’t need to. My grandmother was with me. In the way I moved through the world. In the strength I’d learned from her. In every choice I made to keep living even when loss tried to stop me.
That night, we had dinner at Claudette and Michael’s.
Claudette yanked the door open before I could knock, her eyes immediately dropping to my left hand. She grabbed it, shrieked, and pulled me into the house so fast I nearly tripped.
“MICHAEL!” she shrieked. “They’re engaged! Look at this ring!”
“We can see the ring from here,” Michael called from the kitchen. “You don’t have to scream.”
“I’m excited! I’m allowed to scream!” She was turning my hand in the light, examining the ring from every angle. “Oh my God, it’s perfect. It’s so you. How did he—when did he—tell me everything.”
Behind me, I heard Jack laugh as Michael pulled him into one of those back-slapping bro hugs that men did instead of actually expressing emotion.
“Congrats, man,” Michael said. “About time.”
“Took me long enough.”
“Only seven years.”
“I was working up to it.”
They headed for the kitchen, already arguing about whether Jack’s proposal counted as romantic or just overdue, and Claudette dragged me to the couch.
“Okay, start from the beginning. How did he do it? Was it romantic? Did you cry? Did he cry?”
“Library anniversary,” I said. “And yes, very romantic. And no, neither of us cried, but it was close.”
“I knew it!” She bounced on the couch. “I told Michael he was going to propose soon. He had that look. That panicky ‘I’m about to do something terrifying’ look.”
“How do you know that look?”
“Because Michael had it before he proposed to me again.” She grinned. “Men are very transparent when they’re planning something important.”
From the kitchen, we heard Michael yell, “I heard that!”
